21. Will
21
Will
I walked into our hotel bathroom, turned on the shower and faucet, and waited for Thomas to join me and close the door.
“It’s the one,” I said quietly, my voice firm but carrying a thread of disbelief. I leaned against the vanity, my arms crossed tightly over my chest as if the room were freezing rather than hot enough to bake bread.
Thomas nodded. “The Soviets don’t seem to know . . . or if they do, they’re playing it close. Antonov didn’t even glance at the statue.”
“He didn’t have to. The more I think about this, the more convinced I am they don’t know it’s there,” I said. “If they did, that statue wouldn’t be sitting in a glass case for all of Berlin to gawk at. It’d be in Moscow by now.”
“We need to talk to Visla again.”
I sighed, a long, slow breath that carried more than a hint of reluctance. Visla’s prickly personality was only overmatched by the fact she was unwilling to look us in the eye. “You know what she’ll say.”
“I do,” he said. “But we really don’t have a choice.”
The streets had quieted since we returned to our hotel, the kind of quiet that didn’t feel natural. The heat of the day had given way to a sticky, cloying humidity that clutched at everything.
The café was tucked into a corner of the British sector that still felt like a battlefield. The buildings were jagged and torn, their windows empty sockets staring into the night. We rounded the corner, and there it was— Café Morgenrot . A planter sat in its usual place, the leaves of its sad plant drooping under the weight of neglect.
Thomas crouched, careful not to linger. He slipped the note into the drainage pipe, a small folded square wrapped in plain brown paper.
I scanned the street.
There were no shadows out of place, no sudden movements, but the air felt charged, like a storm waiting to break.
“Let’s go,” Thomas murmured, his voice low.
There was only one word written on our note.
Barnacle .
That was our code word for, “We need to meet—as soon as possible.” There was little rhyme or reason to how such code words were chosen, but I supposed that was the point. Anything related to the actual meaning might be figured out by the opposition. Part of our job was to keep them in the dark.
We moved quickly, not looking back, our path winding through alleys and side streets to avoid being too predictable. It wasn’t until we were back at the hotel, the door locked behind us, that I finally let out the breath I’d been holding.
“Now we wait,” Thomas wrote on one of our pages we used to communicate without being overheard.
I pulled a chair to the window and sat with my back to it. Thomas flopped onto the bed.
Less than a half hour later, the scraping of a note sliding beneath our door brought both of us to our feet.
“Here we go,” Thomas said, bending down to retrieve the folded paper. Reading it quickly, he flipped the page around and held it up for me to read.
Alpha. Widow’s peak.
“Loquacious as ever,” I mumbled.
Thomas smirked but said nothing. He refolded the note and shoved it in his pocket.
We’d changed out of our formal attire in favor of dark street cloths more appropriate to the nighttime extracurricular activities we anticipated that evening. There had been a possibility Visla wouldn’t see our signal or receive our missive until the next day. I was relieved to not have to wait for her guidance.
Glancing about the room one final time before locking eyes on me, Thomas mouthed, “Let’s go.”
The walk felt longer than it should have.
Alpha was midnight.
The widow’s peak meant the top of the bell tower at St. Matthias Church, one of five meeting places we’d memorized prior to crossing the border.
We kept to the shadows, our movements deliberate, our eyes constantly scanning. Even in the British sector, safety was an illusion.
St. Matthias loomed ahead, its bell tower a silhouette against the moonlit, cloudy sky. The church itself had fared better than most, its structure largely intact, though its windows bore the scars of shattered stained glass. The iron gate of the graveyard at the church’s rear creaked faintly as we slipped inside.
Shadows swallowed us whole.
Thomas led us on a winding path between, around, and occasionally, over tombstones. Several stone mausoleums where wealthy Berliners lay interred glared accusingly as we passed.
It felt like the eyes of a thousand ghosts stared in anger at our trespass.
Climbing the bell tower’s stair was grueling. The narrow flight spiraled endlessly. A few dozen steps into our ascent, I remembered our training and began counting steps. By the time we reached the top, my legs burned, my breath came in shallow gasps, and I’d completely lost count.
Thomas, of course, looked as composed as ever.
Visla was waiting.
Or rather, her voice was waiting.
She remained out of sight, hidden in the shadows of the far corner, well concealed by the church’s giant bell and its dangling clacker.
When Thomas started to move around the bell, she snapped, “Stay where you are.”
“Jesus,” Thomas muttered. “We’re on the same side, you know?”
“I am only on my own side, and I prefer you stay on yours.”
“Fine,” Thomas surrendered.
“You took your time,” she said, adding a reprimand to the chilliness of her greeting.
“We were being careful,” I replied, my voice even. “You wanted no tails, remember? Besides, the city is too quiet. It feels . . . wrong.”
“It is not quiet. It is listening,” she said in perhaps the most bone-chilling pronouncement I’d heard of late. “What do you have?”
Thomas took the lead. “The rabbi statue. The Keeper of Wisdom. We found it. We saw it at the museum gala we attended earlier tonight. It’s displayed in public and appears unsecured. We believe the Soviets remain unaware of its presence.”
There was a pause, the kind that made my chest tighten.
“Are you certain?” Visla asked. Her voice was low, almost a whisper, her usual superiority replaced with a touch of respect.
“Are we ever certain in this game?” Thomas asked.
Another pause.
“Then we have a window. It is a small one. The Russians are too good for it to remain undiscovered.”
“That was our thinking,” I said.
Visla’s voice hardened. “You know what needs to be done. That statue must be retrieved. It is not simply a piece of art; it is a key. To what remains uncertain, but if the Soviets figure that out first, I suspect we may be in deeper trouble than we already are.”
“A heist?” Thomas said, his tone dry. “Why am I not surprised? It’s such a cliché.”
Visla ignored his sarcasm. “You must act quickly. The museum is never empty, even at night. There will be guards—likely soldiers—and MGB agents searching for their prize. There may also be civilian workers. The museum is one of their primary cultural facilities. Staff works around the clock.”
“This is sounding easier by the moment,” Thomas said.
Again, Visla ignored him. “In addition, the Soviets now use surveillance cameras in their more sensitive operations. If they maintain classified documents or items in the museum’s vaults, you should expect eyes everywhere. You will need to disable them without drawing attention.”
“Great, cameras.” I leaned my head back against the rough stone of the tower’s interior.
“And you will need an exit plan,” Visla concluded.
“And how do you suggest we pull all this off?” Thomas asked. “It’s not as if we’re walking into a quiet gallery in the middle of London.”
“I will acquire tools,” Visla said. “A package will be waiting for you tomorrow night at the drop site. It will be too large for the drainage pipe, so you will need to enter the café and speak with a waitress named Elisa.”
“And if we get caught?” I asked, my voice steady despite the tension coiling in my chest.
“You must not,” she said sharply. “Because if you do, no one will be able to help you.”
Her words hung in the air, heavy and final.
Thomas didn’t need to say anything; I already knew what he was thinking.
“When do we do this?” I asked.
“Tomorrow night. You will only have thirty minutes. No more,” Visla replied, then her voice softened to a level I hadn’t thought capable of the icy woman. “You know what is at stake. The Soviets are not collecting art. They are piecing together something far more insidious. This may involve information regarding troops or operations—or it may have something to do with terrible weapons. For all we know, there may be photos of Stalin in ladies’ underwear.”
I was so caught off guard by Visla’s sudden use of humor that I barked a laugh.
“We do not know what the Soviets seek,” Visla continued. “But the statue . . . We believe it is the key. If they get their hands on it first, the balance of power may shift. Permanently.”
“We’ll do it,” Thomas said with a confidence I wished I shared.
“Good,” she said. “Then we have nothing further to discuss.”
Thomas locked eyes with me, a silent plea for support. In his gaze, I was surprised by how much of my fear he shared, despite the strength of his words. I wanted to reach out, to pull him close, to feel his warmth.
But such things waited for the cloak of privacy, one the world demanded we drape about our shoulders when no one else stood near.
“Visla?” I said, feeling a sudden lack of eyes peering from the darkness.
There was no sound or movement—just silence, as if she had never been there at all.
“Well,” Thomas whispered. “We wanted answers. Now we’re stealing them.”
I reached up and rubbed his arm. “Just another day in paradise.”
Our trek back to the hotel was quiet. The streets were as hollow as my chest felt. Neither of us spoke. Boris and Sergei appeared unsurprised as we entered their field of vision. They were pros, after all. They might not have appreciated us giving them the slip, but their professional admiration for our return was clear in their lack of reaction to it. Pride tickled my chest.
As we stepped inside our room, the enormity of what lay ahead settled over me, a woolen blanket drenched from a summer storm.
This mission wasn’t about a statue.
It was about what that statue represented, what it could unlock, and the danger we’d face trying to keep it out of Soviet hands. Tomorrow night, we’d step into the shadows, into the unknown, and we’d either walk out with the Keeper of Wisdom —or not at all.